Love Island star Alex Bowen reveals off-camera moment he first told partner he loved her

Love Island star Alex Bowen has revealed the unexpected moment he first told Olivia Bowen - then Buckland - he loved her, and as it turns out it actually happened in the villa, just moments before they were about to go live for the 2016 series finale.

In an exclusive interview with The Mirror, the ITV alum shared: "On the day of the final before we went live, I said to Liv that I loved her, but I didn’t mean to say it, and I wasn’t on camera. But then it was literally about — I think they were counting down like 10, 9, 8, ready to go live, and I said oh it’s fine, like I love you, and then she never heard me say it.

"And I was kind of like, oh my God, I just said I love you, and then that was the first time I was kind of like, oh, I’m in this. That was probably like my fondest memory from it all, to be honest."

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However, he cheekily admitted that he didn't tell her he dropped the L bomb until she told him she loved him two weeks later. After that he came clean, saying that he thinks it would have been mean not to.

Since their time on Love Island, Alex and Olivia's relationship has blossomed into one of Love Island’s biggest success stories. The couple married in 2018 and are now expecting their second child together. They already share a son called Abel, who was born in 2022.

While Alex ended up getting his fairytale ending, he did admit that for a while after being featured on the ITV dating show, he felt an internal pressure to keep up the image of himself that audiences got to know.

He acknowledged that Love Island producers have limited one-hour television slots to fill, and believes that because of this, they didn't have the time to showcase certain aspects of his personality.

He shared: "They only showed like certain sides of me on the show, like the Prince Charming or the bombshell that comes in that kind of messes things up. They never really showed other sides to me. So I felt like for a few years after I kind of played up to it a little bit.

"I used to care about what I wore to events or how I looked, or I need to say certain things and now I just don’t really care. I’ll kind of say what I want, wear what I want, like I don’t know. I feel like it’s the art of like not caring really."

Alex went on to elaborate on some of the moments were not aired, explaining: "So obviously they used to show me and Olivia chatting all the time, or the drama that happened. But I remember me and Nathan, when people were having chats, we were throwing fruit at people and just messing around, being stupid.

"And they never really showed any of the funny side of it. I feel like that side of my personality kind of got lost, but obviously we did like a show after that, me and Liv did. It's a 66 part series that was on like a different channel, but I could kind of be myself more then and people were messaging saying like I didn't realize you were like this."

He was keen to make it clear that the same goes for contestants who are on Love Island this year, adding: "Now when people judge people on there, like they're only seeing certain aspects of their personality."

Reality TV aside, Alex and Olivia are now focused on creating a happy life for their growing family. They shared the news of baby number two on social media in a sweet video where Olivia showed Alex the positive pregnancy test. Later on the whole family got together around the Christmas tree in matching jumpers to hold up snaps of the baby scans.

Alex previously spoken about how he and Olivia keep their relationship strong after all these years, saying: "You’ve just got to try and pretend you’re still getting to know each other. Even if it’s just watching a movie together, it’s about making time for yourselves."

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